"Alert: TARDIS materializing..."
"Look sharp!" The Commander barked to his men, who quickly moved to arm themselves as per protocol. Laser rifles taken to hand, locked, and loaded as their booted feet trampled against the metallic flooring toward the target zone. The scanners built into their combat suits were tracking the build up of artron radiation, a clear indicator that they had all come to know of the arrival of one of the combatants of the Time War... or more of them, a reality that they had dreaded highly for some time. The Commander had no intention of letting Lister Station be caught in a war zone.
"Fifteen seconds to full materialization..."
The wheezing sound came to their ears before they caught sight of it, echoing through the corridors and growing louder as they grew closer to it. A strong wind had picked up within Atrium 14 as the members of Protector Tactical Squad 81-A took their positions around the materializing object. A tall, blue box with a flashing white light at the top.
"Commander Katoss, target located!" One of the soldiers reported.
"Train weapons." Katoss was an older gentleman. No one who served under him knew his exact age, but knew enough of him to know that his fiftieth year had passed him by some time ago. He had been a veteran of the War of the Five Fire Rings, and had served as a Protector in the decades before that. From what his men saw, he feared nothing. At the moment, however, Katoss did know fear and it made him stiffen his back as he gazed upon the blue box while trying to keep his face as neutral as possible. His shoulders girded by his leather jacket, his hand gripping his personal sidearm, holding himself at the ready. The grinding of those engines of time seemed to fade as the box solidified there in Atrium 14, and there was nothing but the sounds of Tactical Squad 81-A standing at the ready for whoever or whatever may emerge from it.
Seconds became minutes... and still, nothing emerged. No Time Lord, no Dalek, no nothing.
"Begin containment procedure sev-" Katoss began to speak, but was cut off as his communicator began to ring its traditional chime when a non-Protector attempted to contact him. "Hold." He ordered his men, accepting the communication. "Doctor, I do not have the time-"
"Tell your men to stand down immediately, Commander."
"On what grounds?"
"That TARDIS is not that of a typical Time Lord. Stand down."
"I don't care what sway you hold with Protector Command, you do not give me orders." Katoss replied indignantly.
"I give you my word, the pilot of that TARDIS is not a danger to you unless you decide to make him one. And you do not want to make him one. Stand down. I am coming and I will take full custody of him."
"...very well." Katoss ended the call, turning his attention back to his men. "Remain at the ready, ladies and gentlemen."
She gazed down through the glass wall of the lift as it descended down into Atrium 14, beholding a sight she had never thought she would lay eyes on again. The last time had been over twenty years ago, but it was a welcome sight nonetheless. The man within, she had known quite well. If half the storied little whispers she had heard were true, they might finally be able to learn what it was that had happened across space and time that had led to such devastation.
The doors opened with a hiss and she stepped out onto the floor of Atrium 14, moving quickly toward that familiar blue box and the members of Tactical Squad 81-A.
"Thank you for standing down, Commander Katoss..." She said dryly as she approached.
"Sarcasm is unbecoming of you, Nyssa." The man, quite a bit older than she, fixing her with a strange look. "You are aware that this is a Time Lord. They're an automatic Bad Wolf level security threat."
"This Time Lord is not like the others, I promise you that." Nyssa said. Without another word to the soldier, she stepped over to the TARDIS. She felt her heart flutter at the thought, remembering all those adventures and amazing sights she had seen across the whole of time and space alongside that man. That impossible man from another world entirely. Gathering herself, Nyssa rapped her hand gently against the door a few times. From within, she could hear the tap of feet against metal flooring. The last daughter of Traken stepped back as she heard the door unlock and it swung open with a squeaking noise, pulling inward.
The man who emerged from that other dimensional space was not the man she had been expecting. The young man with fair blonde hair, exuberant blue eyes, and a charming smile now looked to be a man in his forties, with strong cheek bones, close-cropped hair, and very distinctly large ears. His crickteering outfit had been replaced by worn down double-breasted leather coat, brown denim trousers, and a maroon and white neck scarf. Apart from this booted feet she noted, too, the leather bandolier that crossed his chest above a tan dress shirt. A bizarre blend of styles, though an eccentricity she might expect from a new incarnation of the man she had known.
"Doctor?" Nyssa questioned, certain that her intuition upon seeing that tall, blue box had been correct.
"Once. Always. Never again. Will be." The man's voice was a strong, deep one. The accent she didn't recognize, though clearly English. He moved out of the doorway, stumbling a bit. Nyssa caught him under the arm and helped him to stand once more.
"Doctor, are you alright? The War... we had heard-"
"No time. Time's run out... I'm the last one..." The Doctor spoke. Nyssa noted his mind seemed fevered, as though - ah, she realized it!
"You've regenerated." She said.
"Are the ears a little better this time? I hope they are. I was worried about-" The Doctor commented before his eyes rolled back and he began to slump over, Nyssa working to try and keep him from falling to the ground completely. Alas, the man dwarfed her by a few feet and she failed almost immediately to support him on her shoulder.
"Call for the medical team! Now!" Nyssa intoned toward the gathered soldiers.
"You heard her! Move it!" Katoss barked sharply. His men quickly moved into action, assisting Nyssa as best they could while one called for the medical team as instructed.
"We are not ready."
"Your objections have been noted. We are proceeding regardless."
"Absolutely not! I can't lower the tranquility barrier! Not now!"
"You will obey your orders!"
"I can't! The entire station is under lockdown after the arrival of that TARDIS!"
"...you will elaborate."
"A TARDIS materialized in Atrium 14 only an hour ago..."
"Transmit an image of this TARDIS to us now."
"Why should that make a difference?"
"You will transmit an image to us now!"
"Alright! Alright! Sending you the footage now."
"..."
"..."
"The pilot of that TARDIS is one of our greatest enemies. A Time Lord known as the Doctor."
"A Time Lord! What do you want me to do?"
"We have restructured our paradigm. The interference of the Doctor means nothing. We shall proceed..."
When he had been found to be in stable condition (barring being somewhat addled in the mind as he had been before, she remembered), Nyssa had had the Doctor taken up from Atrium 14 into Recovery Wing 10-1. With him settled in a room, Nyssa knew her staff would give him the best of care while he recuperated. Her initial instinct to wait at his bedside was put on hold as the rest of the station needed attending to, in particular other patients under her care and her administrative duties. It was as she was leaving her rounds on the sixth floor (and noting that the lighting fixtures needed re-tuning) that her communicator buzzed with an alert.
Patient 1-0-0-8 is conscious.
Nyssa smiled as she made her way back toward Recovery Wing 10-1, stepping from the lift and making her way toward Room 1008. The door slid open and she stepped in, seeing the moderate set up. A bed, sink, a doorway into a small bathroom, and of course the trio of windows that formed the far wall. The clothing she had seen him wearing earlier had been neatly folded and now was set on a cabinet as he had likely either dressed himself now or had been dressed in the light blue scrubs reserved for patients. The man himself sitting on the bed and looking out through the window, as still as a statue.
"Doctor?" Nyssa questioned as she approached, her eyes flickering toward a tray of food that had been set out for the man that was now empty, save for a pear that looked as though it had had only a single bite taken out of it.
"We're in the Aktren Galaxy." The man's accent was thick as he spoke, his voice a deep and powerful one that Nyssa found herself hanging on every word of.
"That's right. We are." Nyssa said, hands folded behind her back as she approached the Doctor's bedside. "Quite a distance from when we last met."
"It's still here." The Doctor said again, still staring out at the stars. "After everything, it's... it's all still here." Nyssa regarded the man closely. His blue eyes held something more than the bright, blue ones she had remembered from their time traveling together. The Time Lord looked worn down, a sadness eked out from his face as he stared blankly at the space outside.
"Doctor... what happened?" Nyssa asked, sliding to sit on the bed next to him, facing the window as well. "When we heard about the War, I thought-"
"The War..." The Doctor said, his voice choking just for a fraction of a second before he regained control of it. "The War is over, Nyssa."
"It's... over?" She should have felt excited. Elated. Overjoyed. Yet, seeing the look on the Doctor's newest face, the feeling settled in the pit of her stomach that she should feel anything but that.
"It's over." The Doctor said, and for the first time he looked at her. "We lost, Nyssa... everyone lost."
"Carrier Armitage, please transmit your code clearance." The control tower for Lister Station had picked up the vessel, one of many that came in for cargo runs, dropping into the system out of slipspace. Armitage had been through there plenty of times over the last few months. However, they were usually prompt in responding to transmission for code clearance. The communications officer, Barton, stared in confusion at the scanner. "Carrier Armitage, respond." No reply came. "Well, this is damn peculiar..." He muttered.
"Does their ident check out?" Ronald, the ops officer, spoke up.
"Yeah, it's the same ident." Barton said. "But why aren't they responding?"
"Maybe their comm systems have failed?"
"Have they?"
"They aren't close enough to do a proper scan."
"I..." Barton saw the screen flickering with a sudden in-rush of information, the sensors registering new input that was... quickly becoming troublesome. "They've... stopped. And the transmitter has been blocked."
"Why are they blocking their transmitter?"
"Not their transmitter! Ours!"
"What? Flip the override!"
"I'm trying! They aren't respondi-" Barton's eyes went wide. "A T-Mat link has been established!"
"What?!"
"It's coming from the Armitage!"
"What happened to our shielding?!" Barton nearly screamed at the other man.
"I don't know! The controls are locked out! There's nothing I can do!" Ronald replied, clearly panicking at the situation before them.
"I have to raise the alert! We must warn Commander Katoss!" Barton got up from his post and moved over to the emergency network terminal, one tapping directly into the Protector network. As he began to tap out his access code, he heard an electronic chirp to his left. Turning, he had just enough time to see a silver creature that was roughly the size of a small snake skittering up the wall nearest him. The creature's body was in segments, a pair of red lights at the front of it served as sort of eyes and beneath that were rows of teeth. Barton heard the chirping again and the thing seemed to leap from the wall, landing at his neck. Barton cried out in pain, falling over as he felt something sharp dig into his throat. As he fell, through pain-stricken eyes, he saw a tall, silver form appear behind Ronald.
The towering mechanoid grabbed Ronald by the throat and began to squeeze. Try as he might, Ronald was unable to pry himself free and soon fell into unconsciousness, the tall robotic being tossing him aside and his body falling with a sickening crack against the console. Barton's body was racked with pain, so much so that he could not speak or scream, merely pained gasps that soon faded away as his body suddenly started to go numb.
Soon, the metal man was joined by another and another and another. The first, the one who had emerged first and had killed Ronald, approached him and seemed to regard him closely. The last words that Barton ever heard were uttered by the being, said in a deep, rich, highly synthesized voice.
"Lister Station belongs to the Cybermen!"
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